Co-Bots is the future of robotics: Universal Robots’ Esben Østergaard

Robots are playing a very important part in the industry today but the future lies in the hand of collaborative robots which work along with the humans to create something.Aritra Sarkhel | ETtech | August 24, 2016, 09:27 IST

Robots are playing a very important part in the industry today but the future lies in the hand of collaborative robots which work along with humans to create new avenues.

In an interview with ETtech, Esben Østergaard,CTO & Co-founder of Universal Robots talks about the importance of Co-Bots, sheds light on how Co-Bots will create more jobs and their collaboration with the government of India.

Edited Excerpts

In the movie I Robot, the character Detective Del Spooner says “Human beings have dreams. Even dogs have dreams, but not you, you are just a machine. An imitation of life. Can a robot write a symphony? Can a robot turn a... canvas into a beautiful masterpiece?”Do you think robots with more advanced AI in the future will lead to job looses for mankind?

Technology in general does not move jobs. During the mechanization of agriculture in 18th century Europe a lot of jobs were removed but what more people got jobs as new opportunities arose. This thing about technology taking jobs is not true. For countries that have the highest density of robots are also the ones with lowest unemployment and companies that buy our robots actually end up hiring more people at the same time quality of the products increase which gives more export potential than competition which results in business growth.

But machines at the other end will never be able to provide customized products value for each customer. They are good at delivering a piece of work that is not creative and does not require certain critical human sensibilities.

One of our customers, Auro Labs had implemented our Co-Bots in their organization and was able to bring down the cost of a lens down to 270 rupees from 3,000 rupees. Our Co-Bots load and unload the machine that makes these lenses. Moreover, they increased their workforce after our Co-Bots were included in their workforce and today they export to 150 countries worldwide. Earlier they used to make 150 lenses a day which was a manual process and today they have been making 10,000 vision creation devices.

How is Universal Robots helping ramp up the skill sets of people in the countries that you operate so that there is an equal opportunity for people working around in these highly skilled environments along with collaborative robots?

Ours is a traditional robot technology with some added stuff. We have added the safety system, EC programming. The EC Programming lowers the skill level required to automate which means you need less of a robot education. But you want all the types’ people to do it which are typically the people who know the processes. Most often, the companies that use our robot; they don't fire the people who did their work before because they are pretty valuable.

Europe and China continue to be Universal Robots main growth markets. Where does India stand in the picture for you? How is it different from other markets in its acceptance of co bots as a technology?

There are more Co-Bots being used in China as compared to India. In India, we are generally cramped for space to install big industrial robots and moreover, robotics has not been popular in India because robots mean automation, anytime, one tries to automate 100%, the costs go up. The first 70% is relatively cheap and easy to do with these robots, the last 20% you will need vision systems, fancy gadgets and in turn expenses go up.

But unlike traditional robots, Co-Bots do not kill people. People work shoulder to shoulder with our Co-Bots and need less space to operate on the shop floor.

So Co-Bots offers best of both the worlds. Get the easy automation done, put a robot in, have him work with a person.

Robotics always brings up an image of large heavy duty machines but your Co-Bots are for small and medium businesses. Do you see business expanding in that direction of large industrial robots?

Our products are mainly for the small and medium size companies but we shall gradually move towards that direction. Customers need flexibility, easy installation process and they want do their own programming and as it turns out, a lot of large companies have the same need and the reason is the world needs more specialized products with shorter production periods become shorter and more value add end products.

In the long term, there will more small customized plants in terms of customer needs that make the final product and this type of Co-Bots manufacturing will grow significantly.

Manufacturers are still concerned about safety of Co-Bots on the factory floor. How do you deal with that?

We wanted to make a tool for people to use it easily. Easy programming and being light weight was a part of that. We have a technology with a lot of safety functions built into it. Our machines are ISO certified at the same time.

The existing standards of ISO certification did not cover our area of work when we started out few years ago but for the last five years, we have been working with ISO to build the ISO/TS 15066:2016 standard which is a new standard for these kinds of Co-Bots.

All the standards were so far about making the robots far away from people so that we don’t get harmed. However, our industrial co bots were designed from ground up not to kill people, to work with people. Its taken 5 to 6 years to lobby a lot of other people from the industry for this new standard and this has been released in Feb 2016.

Any collaboration with the Indian Government so far?

We have participated actively in Make in India. In fact, Bajaj has got over 120 of our Co-Bots to make 3.3 million vehicles every year.

In terms of skill India, we are getting involved with Nasscomm with our programming software which is free and have given it to all their training centres. This software can be used to simulate robotic movements, for palletizing, conveyor tracking etc. and students in India can download this and use it for free, therefore enabling a generation to train and equip themselves with robotic skills.